Re-posting this from another thread on request to keep GTA4 in one thread:
With GTA:IV coming out I've been thinking all about video game censhorship which is something I'm sure most gamers get pretty passionate about. I'm forced to consider it more than I used to having moved from the UK where is hardly any really severe censorship (except for Manhunt 2 and a couple of others) to Australia where quite tame games such as Dark Sector aren't getting released either and even GTA:IV will be watered down a tad. They only have a "Mature 15+" rating here as opposed to 18 in the UK, R:17 in the US and "Anyone can play anything anytime" in Japan.
It's really really annoying that as a 26 year old I am restricted in what I want to play because of a ridiculous law like this over here and so I read a comment piece on video game censorship with great relish today and thought I'd post it here. It said all I'd like to say and more! Enjoy!
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"I'm talking to you, you self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists, you relics who beat on computer games: you've already lost. Enjoy your carping while you can, because tomorrow you're gone.
According to the UK Statistics Authority, the median age of the UK population is 39. Half the people who live here were born in 1969 or later. The BBC microcomputer was released in 1981, when those 1969ers were 12. It was ubiquitous in schools; it introduced a generation to computers. It introduced a generation to computer games.
Half the UK population has grown up playing computer games. They aren't addicted, they aren't psychopathic killers, and they resent those boneheads - that's you - who imply that they are addicted and are psychopathic killers.
Next year, that 1969 will be 1970; the year after, it'll be 1971.
Dwell on this, you smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossils: half the UK population thinks games are fun and cool, and you don't. Those born in 1990 get the vote this year.
Three years from now, that 1969 will be 1972, then 1973. Scared yet? You should be: we have the numbers on our side. Do your worst - you can't touch us. We've already won.
15 years from now, the prime minister of the day will have grown up playing computer games, just as 15 years ago we had the first prime minister to have grown up watching television, and 30 years ago to have grown up listening to the radio. Times change: accept it; embrace it. Don't make yourself look even more 20th Century, even more public school, than you do already. You've lost! Understand? Your time has passed.
This anxiety you sense, this fear of what you don't comprehend: hey, it's OK. Parents who didn't play computer games do feel alienated, do feel isolated from their children; they do feel frightened, and naturally so, because they can't keep their children safe if they don't understand what they're keeping them safe from.
It's transient, though. Upcoming parents played games themselves, or if they didn't, their siblings did, or their friends did. They're no more concerned about "moral decay" or "aggressive tendencies" or any of the other euphemisms for "ohmygod I don't understand this" than you are about soap operas. They're the present, not you: you're the ever-more-distant past.
Gamers vote. Gamers buy newspapers. They won't vote for you, or buy your newspapers, if you trash their entertainment with your ignorant ravings. Call them social inadequates if you like, but when they have more friends in World of Warcraft than you have in your entire sad little booze-oriented culture of a real life, the most you'll get from them is pity.
In March, the Byron Report came out. How pleased the government must have been with itself! By appointing a parenting expert to lead it, they were practically guaranteeing they'd get 266 pages of ammunition to use against computer games. Just thinking about the popularity boost from cracking down on this evil would have had them salivating with glee!
Except Dr Tanya Byron was born in 1967. When the Sinclair ZX Spectrum came out in 1982, she was only 15. She knew what the government didn't: computer games are here to stay. So long as parents understand the dangers, they can make informed decisions. She didn't recommend lining computer game designers up against the wall and shooting dead every last one of them. Her report was balanced and fair. She suggested education as a solution. That's a level of reason rarely seen in the context of UK government.
So we've won: accept it. Huff and puff if you must, but your audience grows smaller by the day. Your views are mortally wounded, and soon they will be dead.
Games are mainstream. Drown, or learn to swim."
From The Guardian
Richard Bartle, the creator of MUD, is a teaching fellow at the University of Essex
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With GTA:IV coming out I've been thinking all about video game censhorship which is something I'm sure most gamers get pretty passionate about. I'm forced to consider it more than I used to having moved from the UK where is hardly any really severe censorship (except for Manhunt 2 and a couple of others) to Australia where quite tame games such as Dark Sector aren't getting released either and even GTA:IV will be watered down a tad. They only have a "Mature 15+" rating here as opposed to 18 in the UK, R:17 in the US and "Anyone can play anything anytime" in Japan.
It's really really annoying that as a 26 year old I am restricted in what I want to play because of a ridiculous law like this over here and so I read a comment piece on video game censorship with great relish today and thought I'd post it here. It said all I'd like to say and more! Enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm talking to you, you self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists, you relics who beat on computer games: you've already lost. Enjoy your carping while you can, because tomorrow you're gone.
According to the UK Statistics Authority, the median age of the UK population is 39. Half the people who live here were born in 1969 or later. The BBC microcomputer was released in 1981, when those 1969ers were 12. It was ubiquitous in schools; it introduced a generation to computers. It introduced a generation to computer games.
Half the UK population has grown up playing computer games. They aren't addicted, they aren't psychopathic killers, and they resent those boneheads - that's you - who imply that they are addicted and are psychopathic killers.
Next year, that 1969 will be 1970; the year after, it'll be 1971.
Dwell on this, you smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossils: half the UK population thinks games are fun and cool, and you don't. Those born in 1990 get the vote this year.
Three years from now, that 1969 will be 1972, then 1973. Scared yet? You should be: we have the numbers on our side. Do your worst - you can't touch us. We've already won.
15 years from now, the prime minister of the day will have grown up playing computer games, just as 15 years ago we had the first prime minister to have grown up watching television, and 30 years ago to have grown up listening to the radio. Times change: accept it; embrace it. Don't make yourself look even more 20th Century, even more public school, than you do already. You've lost! Understand? Your time has passed.
This anxiety you sense, this fear of what you don't comprehend: hey, it's OK. Parents who didn't play computer games do feel alienated, do feel isolated from their children; they do feel frightened, and naturally so, because they can't keep their children safe if they don't understand what they're keeping them safe from.
It's transient, though. Upcoming parents played games themselves, or if they didn't, their siblings did, or their friends did. They're no more concerned about "moral decay" or "aggressive tendencies" or any of the other euphemisms for "ohmygod I don't understand this" than you are about soap operas. They're the present, not you: you're the ever-more-distant past.
Gamers vote. Gamers buy newspapers. They won't vote for you, or buy your newspapers, if you trash their entertainment with your ignorant ravings. Call them social inadequates if you like, but when they have more friends in World of Warcraft than you have in your entire sad little booze-oriented culture of a real life, the most you'll get from them is pity.
In March, the Byron Report came out. How pleased the government must have been with itself! By appointing a parenting expert to lead it, they were practically guaranteeing they'd get 266 pages of ammunition to use against computer games. Just thinking about the popularity boost from cracking down on this evil would have had them salivating with glee!
Except Dr Tanya Byron was born in 1967. When the Sinclair ZX Spectrum came out in 1982, she was only 15. She knew what the government didn't: computer games are here to stay. So long as parents understand the dangers, they can make informed decisions. She didn't recommend lining computer game designers up against the wall and shooting dead every last one of them. Her report was balanced and fair. She suggested education as a solution. That's a level of reason rarely seen in the context of UK government.
So we've won: accept it. Huff and puff if you must, but your audience grows smaller by the day. Your views are mortally wounded, and soon they will be dead.
Games are mainstream. Drown, or learn to swim."
From The Guardian
Richard Bartle, the creator of MUD, is a teaching fellow at the University of Essex
-----------------------------------------------------
